


The Opportune Moment

by Tammaiya



Category: X -エックス- | X/1999
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Grief, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-15
Updated: 2004-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:29:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammaiya/pseuds/Tammaiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Subaru's first kiss was always going to be from Seishirou.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Opportune Moment

It was a pleasant day today, Subaru reflected, and smiled shyly at his companion. Hokuto had gone to meet a school friend to study for a test she had the next day, and so Seishirou had suggested they go on a picnic to Ueno Park, just the two of them.  
  
Subaru might have felt less uncertain about it had Hokuto not implied certain things about their 'date', but never mind.  
  
Catching the tentative happiness on the younger boy's face, Seishirou smiled back and leaned closer. "Having fun, Subaru-kun?"  
  
"Yes, thank you," Subaru replied politely, slightly nervous but strangely comforted by how close Seishirou was.  
  
Seishirou chuckled and let a hand slide up to cup Subaru's cheek, outwardly amused at the way the teenager's face flushed pink and his eyes widened, huge green pools of adorable confusion.  
  
"S-Seishirou-san…?"  
  
"Shhh," Seishirou murmured, and before Subaru could nod his obedience or ask another question, the older man pressed their lips together.  
  
Subaru's breath caught as his hands rose to clutch Seishirou's jacket, torn between embarrassment and joy. His eyes had drifted closed when Seishirou had kissed him-- his first kiss, and it was Seishirou-san, just like he'd secretly hoped it would be-- but suddenly a bizarre sense of wrongness surfaced at the back of his mind.  
  
His eyes flew open, reality hitting in a rush, and Subaru shoved Seishirou away and scrambled back with a strangled yelp. Seishirou stared, utterly shocked at the rejection. "Subaru-kun, what--?"  
  
"This isn't real," Subaru whispered, completely shattered. "This _never happened_!"  
  
His voice rose so that it ended in a yell, and the illusion melted away, sun and cherry blossoms turning to dark skies and desolate stone.  
  
Subaru's eyes are still wide, but now he's in shock. This fight should have been the perfect end, the moment that brought the closure he'd been waiting for since his world had been destroyed with the delusion he'd been wrapped in for that blissful year. Somehow, though, it had gone horribly wrong.  
  
"Subaru-kun…"  
  
His hand is covered in Seishirou's blood, and he can't understand how that happened. He didn't want to kill Seishirou. He wasn't _trying_ to kill Seishirou. He was trying to die! So how the hell…?  
  
"I… really did love you…" Seishirou chokes out through the shuddering breaths, and there's something wrong about that too, but Subaru can't figure out what it is.  
  
Seishirou places a hand at the back of his neck, gently urging him to lower his head, and in his stunned state Subaru complies without even realising. Seishirou reaches up then, holding Subaru's face with both hands and kissing him firmly the way he should have done nine years ago.  
  
Subaru makes a small wounded noise, starting like a frightened rabbit and reflexively tightening his grip on the dying onmyouji. Seishirou's tongue is in his mouth, and the kiss tastes of blood and death and ashes, yet somehow it's sweet. It's almost ironic, Subaru thinks dizzily, but everything they've shared has always been like that-- bittersweet, pleasure-pain, dark and light. He thinks maybe he should have pushed Seishirou away, but the other man is dying and it's their last chance and the time to break the kiss has already passed.  
  
Besides, it's his first kiss.  
  
Twenty-five, but he's never been kissed before. Deep down he never let go of the childish sixteen-year-old hope that it would be Seishirou to whom his first kiss would lay forfeit, and aside from that he'd hardly been living the last nine years of his life. He'd been existing, which was another thing entirely, and it didn't really lend itself to romance.  
  
Seishirou draws away after what seems both an eternity and an instant, smirking lightly at the swirling mix of hopelessness and bewilderment and love and anger flashing through Subaru's eyes.  
  
"You were always so cute, Subaru-kun," he manages to say, smile faltering as his breath grows more laboured and he collapses in Subaru's arms.  
  
"No…" Subaru whispers, holding desperately onto the lifeless figure sprawled across his lap. "No! This can't happen!"  
  
 _It didn't_ , his mind agrees. _Not like this_ …  
  
... and Subaru bolts upright, sheets tangled around his legs and cheeks damp with tears. He's alone in his room, cocooned in silence and darkness, and he feels a chill go down his spine.  
  
Is that what it would be like to kiss Seishirou-san? Would it be like the first time, gentle and considerate, or like the second, desperate and real? Yet despite the differences, there was still the underlying feel of _Seishirou_ , that he was still the same person, and Subaru supposes that maybe that was something he'd failed to see before. No matter what you fake, a person's essential being is still the same.  
  
Then again, perhaps he is deluding himself into believing what he wants to believe, because despite all the opportunities that have flashed before him, Subaru has never kissed Seishirou. Has never been kissed, in fact, either by Seishirou or by anyone else, and by this point he never wants to be.  
  
He had always intended his first kiss to go to Seishirou and no other, ever since the year of the Bet. There have been countless opportunities then and now, but he'd let them pass him by and now Seishirou is gone for good and there are no opportunities left.  
  
Would Seishirou be pleased, or would he think Subaru a fool? Both, probably. Everything about the man has always been a contradiction.  
  
Subaru sighs and scrubs a hand across his tear-stained cheeks, falling back limply on his bed to stare up at the ceiling. Subconsciously, he'd been waiting for the opportune moment, he realises dully.   
  
He'd been so busy waiting that he'd never noticed it was there the whole time.


End file.
